Tutorials/wiki tutorial

How to work on a (media)wiki ?

account creation

In order to start contributing to BS wiki, like in most wikis, you need to create a user account. Do so by clicking on Create Account, in the top right corner or the wiki,

You'll be taken to a page where you will be asked your account details, a question to see if you are not a robot — as you guessed the answer is Kooning.

Wiki editing

How to write on the wiki?

Writing on a wiki is not not very different from writing a blog.

You have a Read and Edit mode.

Edit lets you enter content and make changes to existing content.

While you are editing, you can preview your changes in the Preview window.

Once done editing save the page, otherwise your contribution will be lost.

text formating

Although there is a specific syntax to format the text, you can use the menu to do much of the formating you need. In case you are interested to get to know the syntax here is cheat-sheet with the most important syntax.

You can experiment with writing and formating your own User page. You can get go to this page by clicking in your username, next to the little person drawing. The user page, is normally used to say something about you, but can also be a nice testing ground.

Attention: to create line breaks you need to leave at least one empty space between one line of text and the next.

Titles

You can make titles with different hierarchic levels by using "=" as follows:

=Main Title=

==Sub Title==

===Sub-sub Title===

===Sub-sub-sub Title===

You can place content under each of these section

The result when the page is saved will be:

Main Title

Content under Main Title

Sub Title

Content under Sub Title

Sub-sub Title

Content under Sub-sub Title

Sub-sub-sub Title

Content under Sub-sub-sub Title

page creation

How to create a page?

In a wiki the information is organized into pages or articles ( no great distinction between the two). If you want to say something about something for which there isn't a page, you create that page and start writing its content.

To create a page use the chain icon on the menu, as wiki page are essentially internal links. The result will be: [[name of new page]] .

You can now save you page and see that the link that you created to the new page is red.

• Red link = previously non-existing page.
• Blue link = existing page.

Grafiwiki - an existing page

external links

To link to external webpages, use the world icon.

You'll be presented with: [http://www.example.com link title] and simply need to replace them with url and title(optional)

like:

[http://beyond-social.org/ Beyond Social] will read: Beyond Social

Audio-visual media upload

You probably want not only to write, but also to use images, audio and video on the pages you'll be developing.

Wiki allows the following formats:

Medium	Formats
image	png, gif, jpg, jpeg, svg
audio	ogg, mp3
video	ogv, webm, mp4

To upload you can use the picture icon on the menu. It asks you for the file name of the file you are going to upload (they must match) and a caption if you to say something about that image, video, or audio.

When at this upload menu, instead of "caption" select "none" as the format of your upload.

[[File:myimage.png]]

This action doesn't upload the file, it only inserts a bit syntax that allow you do the upload the file. In order to do so, you need to:

• Save the page you are working on
• Click on the red link of the file you want to upload
• Follow the instruction to upload your file

image captions

Captions can be added to images by using a vertical bar

[[File:myimage.jpg|Caption under the image]]

Youtube videos

You might also use Youtube videos.

To do so you have to write the video's id (the sequence of numbers and letters that follow ?v= in the video url) in between these two tags: <youtube>yourVideoID</youtube>

As an example lets say you want to put the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4 on a page.

1. take the video's id: QH2-TGUlwu4
2. write the youtube tags: <youtube></youtube>
3. put the ID in between the tags <youtube>QH2-TGUlwu4</youtube>

And here it is, the Youtube video:

history

@Andre: needs clarification

How to go back in time to previous versions of a page?

The history of a page (top right "View history" link) shows:

• the list of changes that happen to that page
• when they happened and which user did them
• compare different edit
  • seeing what was changed between them
  • see the page as it was in a given revision
  • edit (or simply copy) the content of that given revision

Say that in your most recent version(revision) you deleted something you need again. To recuse that content:

• go to "View history" page of the page you are working on
• on the left hand side select the revision where you still had your deleted content
• Click "Compare Selected Revisions"
• On the left column where says "Revision as of ..." click Edit
• Navigate the content and find the piece of content you are looking for
• Copy it
• Go back to your page by clicking the "Page" icon

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A little history

The first wiki was create in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, and it was called Wiki Wiki Web (Wiki in Hawaii means quick!).

Interview with Ward Cunningham

Wikis are about speed and easiness of writing and publishing on the Web.

Also about collaboration. According to Ward Cunningham ‘People discovered that they can create something with other people, that they don't even know. But they come to trust and they make something that surprises them in terms of its value’.

Consequently wikis have been used extensively as environments for online collaboration. Examples of this are:

• Wikipedia
• Wiktionary
• MMD&C - PZI wiki
• Digital Craft wiki
• Lostpedia - about TV show Lost
• Uncyclopedia - the content-free encyclopedia